AILE Strike Gundam (1/144)

[denders]

I picked this up last fall at the Murfreesboro IPMS show. Thought I'd check them out to see what they are and whether they might be suitable for the grandsons. Hobby Nut vends at that show.

Upon opening the box, I found the engineering amazing with the multicolored injection molding. These are the sprues after assembling it, but you get the idea if you've never looked at one of these.

Yeah, one corner is clear parts.

Also, this sprue is a different material and there are ball joints molded in.  I found it amazing. The upper right corner are the hands. There is a ball joint for the thumb, the index finger, and then the other three fingers together.

One of the drawbacks, I think, related to the grandsons working on this, is that the instructions tell you to pull some of those ball joints apart to add pieces. I actually had to go through the replacement part process because I broke one of them. That took about 10 weeks.

Then, there's all the STICKERS. 

But, it's done now. 

Nothing is glued, it's all just pushed together. All the joints move and can be posed.

I'll think about it, perhaps I'll go for a larger one. I'll definitely have a closer look at the Gundams on the display table at the next show.

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Gundam can be quite the rabbit hole to fall into. And potentially addictive too.

If you're thinking of building a larger one, Master Grade is the next size up. They're 1/100 scale, Real Grade (the one you built) being 1/144. Master Grade have more detail, and generally more pivots. The top of the line is Perfect Grade. Those are 1/60 but quite a bit more in price. 

Then there's SD which is the eggplant style series of kits. They're generally simpler in build than the Real Grade ones. Recently Bandai has come out with MG-SD which combines the details of the Master Grade kits with the SD style. 

Like I said, quite the rabbit hole. 

Anyways, looks like you had fun and hopefully the grandsons will like trying them out.